DCEU’s recently released movies under the leadership of James Gunn and Peter Safran continue to find their names among the headlines, but hardly for good reasons. Ezra Miller’s The Flash, which was assembled on a budget of around $220 million, trended all summer for its controversial casting, tedious narrative style, and shambolic use of CGIs that led to a Looney Tunes-esque sequence involving flying babies.
The franchise ended the summer with Blue Beetle, which struggled to generate any hype due to the absence of star power and is only ever in the news for its underwhelming performance at the box office. This time, it’s attracting attention for being on course to be left behind by Five Nights at Freddy’s in a stunningly short period of time.
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How Five Nights at Freddy’s Could Embarrass James Gunn’s Blue Beetle
Known for their mastery at delivering horror movies, Blumhouse Productions – the studio behind the $259.9 million hit Halloween (2018) – have seemingly brought forward another Halloween gem in Five Nights at Freddy’s.
The movie, which is inspired by the popular video game series of the same title, is centered around an abandoned family entertainment center, Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza, wherein a night guard is captured by a red pirate-themed fox animatronic. Meanwhile, trouble mall security guard Mike Schmidt (John Hutcherson) reluctantly agrees to work there to ensure his younger sister isn’t taken away by social services.
It’s still early days, but the movie has generated unprecedented hype for a horror-themed movie. As per Deadline, it’s targeting a global opening weekend collection of $130 million. The figure represents the biggest horror opening of the year.
Further, this would also put them ahead of Xolo Maridueña starrer Blue Beetle‘s entire collection, which stands at $129.2 million, raising more pressure and questions in the direction of DC Studios chief, James Gunn.
A few more million on top of the expected figure and Five Nights at Freddy’s will also surpass the lifetime collection of another DCEU movie, Shazam! Fury of the Gods. The movie featuring Rachel Zegler only managed $133.8 million globally.
What James Gunn Thought About DCEU Disaster Blue Beetle
The story of Jaime Reyes, who deals with his newly obtained powers (and a pretty cool blue suit of armor) after finding himself in possession of an ancient relic failed to attract many fans to the theaters despite Gunn hyping up the superhero by confirming he’d be the first DCU character.
Speaking to Total Film magazine, the Cobra Kai star even revealed that the Blue Beetle team received positive reactions from the DC leadership, including Gunn. He revealed:
“I just remember James Gunn has this really excited energy to him all the time. But them coming into this position of the movie already being made, and then being like, ‘All right [mimes rifling through a filing cabinet as if rummaging through the movie], let’s see what we have here’ – it was very rewarding for them to actually respond well to it and enjoy it.”
Regardless of the performance at the box office, the most important thing for Jaime Reyes’ future is the backing of Gunn, and all things suggest the flop movie is not the last we have seen of the character.
